by M C Beaton
‘Which Mrs Clarence did?’
‘Which Mrs Clarence did not. The guest was told to leave immediately.’
‘I wish I had met this Mrs Clarence,’ said Lord Alistair.
Hannah clasped her hands. ‘You would have liked her above all things, my lord. So gay and pretty and happy.’
‘And yet she ran off with a footman?’
‘Well, you know, he was a very handsome footman and a happy fellow, not much in the common way of footmen any more than my Benjamin is. I mean he was not vain or lazy. I believe – I hope – he truly loved her. And, do you see, Mr Clarence was so morose and withdrawn and given to criticizing her constantly. Yes, she did a wicked thing, but I cannot find it in my heart to blame her for it.’
‘Do you know where she is now?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I often hope when I am on my travels to meet her.’
‘Would you recognize her? She may be vastly changed.’
Hannah looked stubborn. ‘I would know her anywhere.’
‘Your loyalty does you credit, as does your strange loyalty to Lady Beatrice.’
‘I like her and I wish I could help her,’ said Hannah. Her odd eyes flashed green as she studied Lord Alistair Munro from his guinea-gold curls to his embroidered waistcoat. ‘But you could surely help her, my lord.’
‘I? Fan me, ye winds! What on earth could I do?’
Hannah gripped the edge of the table and said in a measured voice, ‘You could marry her yourself, my lord.’
His blue eyes were icy and his voice cold as he said, ‘You forget yourself, Miss Pym. Pray talk of something else.’
Hannah blushed and looked so downcast that he felt as if he had just slapped a child. ‘Forgive me for being so harsh,’ he said gently, ‘but your recent successes in matchmaking may have gone to your head. I am that rarest of creatures, a genuinely happy bachelor. Were I not, I would still not look with any affection on such as Lady Beatrice, a cruel and heartless flirt.’
Hannah began to talk of other things and was happy that by the time he had taken his leave of her, he appeared to have forgotten her unfortunate remark.
That evening, Sir Geoffrey strode up and down Lady Beatrice’s drawing-room in a fury. ‘And so I find this Miss Pym is some undistinguished female with no connections whatsoever. You are not to see her again, d’ye hear?’
Lady Beatrice let the piece of embroidery she had been working on fall to her lap. ‘You may constrain me to marry you, Sir Geoffrey, but I shall choose my own friends until we are married.’
‘Your parents shall hear of this, madam. Ho, yes. They will hear you are lowering yourself to common company.’
Lady Beatrice picked up her embroidery again and set a careful stitch. ‘I do not think Miss Pym at all common. She is full of surprises and has powerful friends. By all means tell my parents. I shall tell them in turn that you ordered me to befriend her with a view to getting a title. Now, my parents are after your money, as you very well know, but they are high sticklers, and although my ancestors got the title in the first place by ignoble means, they would not look kindly on your machinations.’
‘They are so anxious to get their hands on my money, they would put up with anything,’ said Sir Geoffrey brutally. ‘You’d best pack your traps and come back to Mother’s.’
‘Oh, no.’ Lady Beatrice looked at him coldly. ‘You are among my servants now, Sir Geoffrey, and I have only to call for help if you hold a gun to my head. I was a fool to go with you before, for I realize now, I am of no interest to you dead.’
He grinned at her. ‘You forget, sweeting, that if you do not do what I ask, I shall simply break off the engagement and your parents will cast you off just as if you had broken it.’
‘I thought of that,’ remarked Lady Beatrice evenly. She selected a thread of purple silk and held it against the cloth, her head a little on one side. ‘My parents, as you so rightly point out, are anxious to get your money, and believe me, they are even more ruthless than you. Should you terminate this engagement, or try to, they would drag you through the courts. They would sue you for breach of promise. My parents love the courts. My father’s lawyers spend most of their time there, suing people over boundaries and tenancies. They would make your life a misery.’
‘They would not dare!’
‘You have met my parents, have you not? Ah, that gives you pause. You know I have the right of it. I shall continue to see Miss Pym. She makes me laugh. Good night, Sir Geoffrey!’
Lord Alistair Munro came across a party of acquaintances on the front the following day. They had telescopes trained on the ladies’ bathing machines.
Lord Alistair looked to see what the focus of their interest was. He had very good eyesight, and even without a telescope he recognized Lady Beatrice and Miss Pym in the water. They were splashing about like seals and their laughter faintly reached his ears. And then, as he watched, Lady Beatrice, with the help of the attendant, climbed out of the water up the short wooden ladder to the bathing machine. Her gown was moulded to her body. He felt a quickening of his senses, and suddenly impatient with himself, he turned abruptly and began to walk away.
Miss Hannah Pym, without stays, ventured to take a walk, with Benjamin behind her, later that day. Lady Beatrice had had a summons from her parents, who had arrived in Brighton.
The feel of her own unrestricted body seemed somehow sinful, and Hannah felt she had gone too far. In fact, her thin, flat-chested figure looked just the same as it did when held by a long corset, but Hannah, although wearing a smart blue wool gown under a pelisse, for the day had turned chilly, was sure everyone was staring at her and everyone knew she had thrown off her stays.
She chided herself and told herself not to be ridiculous, but she was uneasily aware of hard glances cast in her direction. It came as almost a relief to see Mrs Cambridge approaching her with a party of ladies. But the welcoming smile died on Hannah’s lips as Mrs Cambridge came straight up to her and said haughtily, ‘You are an impostor and a charlatan. Do not have the temerity to appear at Southern’s ball or it will be the worse for you.’
Then she minced on, her friends casting many angry glances back at Hannah.
‘Cats!’ said Benjamin. But Hannah stood stock-still, a wave of misery flooding her. She had so wanted to go to that ball, but now she could not. The wind was rising and little grey clouds were scudding across the sun and the sea had a restless, angry look. At one corner of the street, a ballad-seller was singing ‘Death and the Lady Margaret’s Ghost’, and at the other corner, another ballad-seller was competing by singing ‘Chevy Chase’. Their voices rose and fell on the wind, sometimes a cacophony, sometimes in unexpected unison as they both hit the same note.
Hannah turned about and went slowly back to her lodgings. She left Benjamin to make tea and went to her bedchamber and put on her stays, feeling obscurely that God had sent Mrs Cambridge to punish the wanton.
Later, in the parlour, seated in front of a bright fire of sea coal, Hannah said dismally, ‘You may as well take a letter to Sir Alistair and tell him I cannot go to that ball, Benjamin.’
‘You got to go, modom,’ said Benjamin. ‘The prince will be there. Think o’ that? Ain’t that worth putting up wiff a few old cats, mouthing an’ staring? Lady Beatrice’ll be there and Lord Alistair is a friend o’ the prince’s, ain’t he? Well!’
Hannah leaned her head on her hand and stared into the flames. Although not a very religious woman, she felt that she was flying in the face of Providence by moving out of her class. Once a servant, always a servant. One had to accept one’s station in life, however low, for that was where the Good Lord had put one.
‘If you don’t go,’ said Benjamin anxiously, ‘then I can’t go and I’ll never get to see the prince, not ever!’
Hannah, lost in her own worried thoughts, did not hear him. Was she such a bad woman? Look at the matches she had made on her first three journeys. Had she not brought happiness to others? Was Mrs Cambridge such a saint,
such a fine woman, that Hannah Pym should shrink before her snubs and be terrified at the thought of receiving more? Was she to sit here on the night of the ball, before this very fire, hearing the music in her head, seeing the prince only in her mind’s eye? She straightened up. ‘I shall go,’ she said quietly.
‘Knowed I could talk you out of the megrims,’ said Benjamin, and went off to make more tea.
Lady Beatrice faced her parents. They were seated opposite her in her drawing-room, side by side on a backless sofa, ramrod-straight. Her father, the earl, was a tall man who still wore his hair powdered. He had pale, cold eyes, set rather close together, and a large hooked nose. His countess was small and plump with fine eyes in a crumpled, discontented face. They were listening intently to their daughter.
‘So you see,’ Lady Beatrice was saying, ‘this son-in-law you have picked out held me up at gunpoint on the Brighton road and forced me into his carriage.’
The countess flicked open a small gold snuff-box and helped herself to a delicate pinch. ‘Such passion,’ she commented in a thin voice. ‘Very headstrong man, but the strength of his feelings for you does him credit.’
‘Fiddlesticks,’ said Lady Beatrice. ‘Are my feelings not to be taken into consideration? I despise and detest the man.’
‘From my observation,’ commented her father, ‘I have noticed you despise and detest all men.’
‘Perhaps my feelings for the opposite sex might have been warmer had you not seen fit to marry me off to a lecher and wastrel,’ snapped Lady Beatrice.
‘Oh, Blackstone?’ The countess shrugged. ‘An unfortunate rip. But he’s dead now. No, no, do not plague us with more protestations. You are still of an age to breed and we need an heir. Sir Geoffrey will do very well.’
Lady Beatrice surveyed her parents, wondering if there was anything she could say that would move them, wondering if there had ever been anything she could have said to spark some parental feeling from them. But they had had little do with her from the day she was born. She had been turned over to a wetnurse, then a nanny, then a governess, then sent to a seminary. She remembered returning from the seminary to find a houseful of guests and hearing her father ask a footman, ‘Who is that very pretty young lady? One of our guests?’ And the footman’s reply, ‘No, my lord, it is Lady Beatrice.’
That evening, for the first time, she had been asked to dine with her parents instead of taking her meal in the schoolroom. They had plied her with questions as to her talents – could she play the pianoforte, were her water-colours passable? – and, flushed and happy under all this sudden attention, Lady Beatrice had chattered away, elated to sense she had done something at last to bring herself to the attention of her parents. She was to learn all too soon that it was her looks that had caused this sudden interest – looks that could be traded profitably on the marriage market.
‘So,’ she said bleakly, ‘you are still determined to turn me off should I not marry Sir Geoffrey?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the countess, ‘but you will not do anything silly. Do we not give you a generous allowance for your clothes and jewels? You are our child and will not do anything to turn yourself into a pauper.’
‘I might put it to the test,’ said Lady Beatrice slowly. ‘Have you both thought of your reputations if I should end in the workhouse?’
‘Yes,’ said her father, ‘and it is fortunate you have been so thoroughly nasty to so many. No one would care. In fact, society might take a malicious delight in the spectacle of the haughty Lady Beatrice being humbled.’
‘Leave me,’ said Lady Beatrice wearily.
Both rose. ‘We shall go ahead with the arrangements for the wedding,’ said the countess. ‘A quiet affair, of course.’
When they had gone, Lady Beatrice sat feeling a lump rising in her throat. Her father had said, ‘No one would care,’ and that had hurt dreadfully, and then she thought of Hannah Pym. Miss Pym liked her, she was sure of that. Miss Pym would listen to her. Perhaps there was something Miss Pym could do.
She went alone to Hannah’s, without her maid, feeling she could not trust her own servants to be loyal to her. If Marianne came with her, Marianne would hear the conversation and might report it to the other servants and one of those servants might report what she said to her parents.
Hannah was surprised but pleased to see Lady Beatrice and led her through to the parlour, where the fire still burned brightly.
‘It is an odd time of night to be making a call,’ said Lady Beatrice, handing her pelisse and walking-cane and gloves to Benjamin.
‘You are always welcome,’ said Hannah. ‘Benjamin, you may have the evening off.’
Benjamin glanced at the clock. Ten in the evening. ‘No, thank you, modom,’ he said.
‘I am asking you to take yourself off,’ said Hannah crossly. ‘If you do not wish to go out, then go to your room.’
Hannah wanted rid of Benjamin. She noticed the strain in Lady Beatrice’s face and knew she must want to talk privately.
Benjamin decided to go out. His fingers closed over the dice he kept in his pocket. He knew Hannah disapproved of his gambling, but he was determined his mistress should cut a dash in Brighton society and he knew she would need money to do that. He would not gamble much. Just get enough to hire a carriage and pair. Benjamin’s eyes gleamed. He felt his mistress should not be seen walking everywhere in Brighton.
Hannah offered Lady Beatrice tea, which she refused, and then asked her gently if there was anything troubling her.
Lady Beatrice, wondering why she had called, feeling no one could help her now, said she merely had come on an impulse and had not realized the hour was so late. She rose to go.
‘No, I pray you,’ said Hannah, ‘do not leave. I am used to late hours. I am an odd companion for you, am I not? I have an undistinguished background and an undistinguished appearance. I wish my nose were straight and my vowels flawless.’
Lady Beatrice surveyed her. ‘You have very fine eyes, Miss Pym, a wealth of kindness, and a distinguished soul.’
‘You are kind. Most ladies of your caste would immediately shun me.’
Lady Beatrice sat down again and slowly removed her bonnet. ‘What were your parents like, Miss Pym?’
‘Perpetually worried, old before their time,’ said Hannah ruefully. ‘I left home very young and saw little of them after that. They died in a smallpox epidemic, as did my brothers and sisters. Mrs Clarence, my late employer’s wife, paid for their funerals.’
‘Did they give you affection?’
Hannah thought sadly of the damp basement in which she had been brought up. ‘They did not have much time for affection,’ she said. ‘They were very poor, and poverty does not allow much leisure for finer feelings. I gather, somehow, that you have just seen your parents.’
‘Yes, this very evening.’
‘And do they show any signs of relenting?’
‘No, not a whit.’
‘Have they considered that, should you not go ahead with this marriage and they carry out their threat, society will consider them monsters?’
Lady Beatrice gave a thin smile. ‘They pointed out, quite rightly, that I have alienated the affections of all. They have the right of it. I have hit out left and right because of my own misery and now must pay the price of being friendless.’
‘Except for me,’ said Hannah quietly. ‘Except for me.’
‘Miss Pym, I am deeply indebted to you. There! I declare you have made me cry.’
Tears rolled down Lady Beatrice’s cheeks and she fumbled in her sleeve for a handkerchief.
Hannah leaned forward and patted her hand. ‘It will do you good to cry,’ she said.
‘I – I f-feel so weak,’ sobbed Lady Beatrice. She dried her eyes and blew her nose. ‘I should be stronger. Surely I could earn some money, find a post as a governess.’
‘I think the life of a scullery maid is better than that of a governess,’ said Hannah. ‘Poor creatures. They are neither fish nor fowl. The
y are despised by master and servants alike. I have it! You can live with me!’
Lady Beatrice stared at her.
‘Why not?’ Hannah’s eyes were golden. ‘We should have to live very simply, you know. I plan to retire to some little cottage in the country. I meant to make a few more stage-coach journeys, but there is more to life than travelling. Just think, Lady Beatrice! You would perhaps find it tedious, but you would be free.’
‘Free,’ echoed Lady Beatrice, looking at Hannah almost shyly. ‘Why should you do this for me?’
‘Because we are friends, are we not?’
‘I could, you know,’ said Lady Beatrice, her large eyes beginning to sparkle. ‘How long have you rented this place for?’
‘Only three weeks.’
‘Splendid. You can move in with me, and … oh, let me see … I will need to give my servants notice … and … and I have a great quantity of jewels. We could sell those and have enough to keep us comfortably. Why did I never think of that? Oh, Miss Pym. The prison gates are opening at last. And I always thought I was a strong person. I could have done this before, or as soon as I heard about the planned wedding to Sir Geoffrey. It is all so simple. I do not need a carriage or jewels. Yes, I have a carriage of my own in London, although my parents hold the title deeds of my house there. I can sell both carriage and horses. What a vast amount of money we society people do spend. If I do not need to keep up appearances I can be quite comfortable. I do not even need to go to the Southerns’ ball.’
A shadow crossed Hannah’s face. ‘Oh, do go to this one ball, Lady Beatrice … for me. For Mrs Cambridge met me this day and told me not to go or it would be the worse for me, but I do want to see the prince.’
‘Then I shall go with you, and in my company, the Mrs Cambridges of Brighton will steer clear. When can you move in with me?’